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[0:00] For starters, I want you to turn to Ezekiel chapter 25, and while you are turning there, I have some introductory remarks to make in connection with the study that we will be engaging.

[0:15] And it is prompted on the basis of a book that Keith Steigers loaned me some time ago called Israel Stein, and in this book, the author, a gentleman by the name of Bill Salas, takes a position regarding the ancient blueprints of the future Middle East that I hitherto was not really familiar with, and it has to do with the content of, it has to do with a lot of things regarding the end time, but more principally, with the vision of the Valley of Dry Bones of Ezekiel 37 and 38, and the passage that we will be looking at here in chapter 25, because what this is dealing with, and what the essence of this book deals with, is the fact that God is really committed to fulfilling the ancient covenant promise that he made with Abraham, which is frequently referred to as the Abrahamic covenant.

[1:25] And this covenant is so staggering and so important that it is going to impact the entire world, not just the Jewish population and not just the Mideast.

[1:43] There is meaning couched in the language of the Abrahamic covenant that is very often either dismissed entirely or minimized.

[1:55] But I am telling you, it is absolutely critical, it is key, it is one of the most important passages in all of the Bible.

[2:06] And what we are going to be examining is the incredible, intense hatred that has fomented in the Mideast for the last 4,000 years.

[2:26] Now it is intensifying. It has always been there, but now it is being kicked up a notch.

[2:38] And the conflict that we see on our TV screens almost every day involving Israel and one of their Palestinian neighbors or Mideast neighbors, whether they are terrorists, whether it's the Gaza Strip or whatever, this thing has just fomented and fomented.

[2:58] And we have been pulled into it by virtue of the 9-11 incidents and what we are dealing with today in fighting terrorism because the terrorists we are fighting are mortal enemies of Israel.

[3:15] All of them, not some of them, all of them are mortal enemies of Israel. Why? What has the Jew done to these people that causes such animosity and hatred?

[3:32] And why don't the Jews reciprocate? Almost every position that you see Israel taking militarily is defensive.

[3:50] Defensive. Who is on the offense? Well, right here on this map, now this is Palestine in Old Testament times.

[4:01] This is called Judah. This is called Israel. But really, all of this is Israel. It's just that this is the Israel of the divided kingdom and the northern ten tribes.

[4:13] This is Judah of the southern two tribes. But this is all Israel. Here is Gaza. Here is Ashkelon. Here is Gath. This is where Goliath was from, this ancient city of Gath.

[4:28] The Gaza Strip is the area right here along the coast. Egypt is right down here. And from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians have been firing their rockets over into Israel, landing just helter-skelter, sometimes doing no damage, sometimes killing a number of civilians.

[4:52] This has been going on now for years. Israel is charged by the UN and by many of the other nations throughout the world.

[5:04] They are charged with occupying Palestinian territory. That is a complete misnomer. They are not occupying any Palestinian territory.

[5:17] They are home where they belong. It is the Palestinians who are causing all of the difficulty and believe that they have a right to the land.

[5:27] And what we are going to see in our study tonight is an explanation as to why they believe that. So I want to introduce to you a new term that you're not familiar with, nor was I until I began this study.

[5:42] But you're going to be hearing from it time and again, and we'll see how it surfaces tonight. The map that you have been given, you see the words in bold print at the top, Olam Iba.

[5:54] Olam Iba. That is Hebrew for the expression, the everlasting hatred. God is going to judge the Arab for his everlasting hatred of the Jew.

[6:15] And Israel has not reciprocated because... I'm sorry? The map? Right there is one on the table. Israel has not reciprocated because this is a one-sided proposition.

[6:32] The promise that God gave was to Abraham. And where the issue has become muddied over the years has to do with the Arab claim that the promise was not...

[6:50] That the promise was to Isaac. But their claim, of course, is that the promise was to Ishmael. And you look at your Bible, as we will tonight, in the Genesis 15 and other passages, and it says as clearly as it can possibly be that God is talking to Abraham, and it is in Isaac that your seed shall be called, not in Ishmael.

[7:14] And you show that to any Arab today, any Arab anywhere, and he is prepared to tell you. Yes, that's what the Old Testament says.

[7:26] But it's not reliable. It's been corrupted. The Jews changed it years ago. It originally said that it was supposed to be Ishmael. And the Jews changed it to Isaac.

[7:38] So you have a corrupted text. And they do not accept the Old Testament on that basis, of course. They accept only the Koran. And they think that the Old Testament has been corrupted by the Jew.

[7:49] And the Jew has retranslated it to favor his own position. So this olam iba literally means ancient hatred. And what we are going to do is trace the origin of that, which I know probably all of you already know.

[8:08] And if you don't know it, you have your suspicions. And your suspicions are probably right, where this goes all the way back to the Isaac and Ishmael thing. But I have never before seen the depth of it or the connections with later generations and that original promise that I have come to see as a result of this book.

[8:30] And to make a long story short, I'll just tell you where this is going. There is a tremendous conflict that is going to take place regarding Israel and the Arab nations.

[8:42] And it is described in Ezekiel 37 and 38. This is the vision of the valley of dry bones.

[8:53] And we'll get there eventually. And our author, Mr. Salas, takes the position that this is not part of the seven-year period of Jacob's trouble or the Great Tribulation.

[9:09] A lot of Bible teachers include Ezekiel 37 and 38 in with the seven-year period of tribulation.

[9:20] Personally, I have never been able to make it fit. But I couldn't understand exactly where it belonged or why or what was going to bring it about until I read this book.

[9:33] And I'm still looking for ways to refute his conclusion. But I haven't found any. And I just may not find any. And it could very well be that he is on to something.

[9:45] It is obvious that the man has done a great deal of good research. Ron? It says in the Bible that pertaining to Ezekiel 38, that war, that it will take seven years to bury the implements of war.

[10:05] So that can't happen during the Tribulation because the Tribulation is seven years. Yeah. So I think this Ezekiel war is going to come before the Tribulation. Well, all of this will fan out as we get into it.

[10:16] And I think it will become clearer. So let's look first of all at this passion. I just want you to see how this word surfaces. And the first one is in Ezekiel 25 and verse 15.

[10:30] Ezekiel 25 and verse 15. Thus says the Lord God, because the Philistines have acted in revenge.

[10:40] And by the way, the Philistines, the ancient Philistines are right here in this area. See, this is Philistia. And this is where the Philistines are.

[10:52] There are people today who are members of the PLO in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians. Some of whom are direct descendants of these Philistines.

[11:06] These are the people that David was fighting when he was king. A thousand years before the birth of Christ. Some of these, not all of them, but some of them are descendants of those people.

[11:18] And they have lived in this area all of this time. So here in Ezekiel 25 and 15. Because the Philistines have acted in revenge and have taken vengeance with scorn of soul to destroy with everlasting enmity.

[11:39] That's the ancient hatred. And in the Hebrew, this everlasting enmity is translated in the Hebrew, Olam Iba, that you see there.

[11:50] Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I will stretch out my hand against the Philistines, even cut off the Karathites and destroy the remnant of the seacoast.

[12:06] You can see that's where they're located right there. And I will execute great vengeance. This is God speaking. I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes.

[12:19] And they will know that I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance on them. And then another in Ezekiel, and that is chapter 35.

[12:35] Ezekiel 35 and verse 5. Because you have had Olam Iba, everlasting enmity, and have delivered the sons of Israel to the power of the sword at the time of their calamity, at the time of the punishment of the end.

[13:02] Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord God, I will give you over to bloodshed, and bloodshed will pursue you.

[13:15] Since you have not hated bloodshed, therefore bloodshed will pursue you. What a tremendously accurate description of today's Arab mentality.

[13:31] I saw one of these top flight guys for the PLO interviewed on television. And he made much of the point, you Americans love life.

[13:50] We love death. Doesn't that sound weird to you? We love death. Why do they feel that way about death?

[14:03] Because they are convinced that in jihad, which is in holy war, and there are two kinds of jihad, but we are only concerned with the kind that does physical violence.

[14:15] And that's the kind that we're contending with. In jihad, the greatest honor that any Muslim can experience is to die in the cause of Allah.

[14:28] Because they believe that is an automatic guarantee that Allah will forgive your sins and welcome you and embrace you into heaven. In fact, that is the only way.

[14:40] That is the only way that a Muslim has any assurance that he will be accepted by Allah. No matter how good a Muslim you've been, no matter how many pilgrimages you've made, no matter how much you've given to the poor, no matter how good of a life you've lived, you have no assurance at all that Allah will accept you unless you are martyred.

[15:03] You are killed in battle. Then that is your guaranteed ticket into favor with Allah. This is why they love death. This is why they train their children four and five years of age that the greatest honor that could ever come to you and the greatest honor you could ever bestow on your parents would be to die as a martyr for Allah.

[15:31] That is the death mentality that they have. When we send our boys into battle, whether it's Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever it might be, we have just one major goal, and that is for them to be victorious and to come home in one piece.

[15:52] We spend all kinds of money and equipment, supplies, training, everything, with the sole purpose of doing everything we can to increase the odds that those we send in combat are going to survive it.

[16:10] They think the greatest thing is to die in combat. This is called loving death and loving blood, and this is exactly what 35 is referring to here. Since you have not hated bloodshed, therefore bloodshed will pursue you, and I will make Mount Seir.

[16:29] Mount Seir is the homeland of the descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob, and we will see how that plays out a little later. And I will cut off from it the one who passes through and returns.

[16:42] Now, what this amounts to, and let me just capsulate this if I can, and then we'll go back to the origins of this olam ibah. But the bottom line on this is, God is going to see to it that when these neighboring enemies, all of whom are identified, enumerated in Psalm 83, that we'll also look at later, they are all the surrounding neighbors of Israel, they are all going to come against Israel.

[17:16] Well, they've already done that. They did that in 1948. Within 24 hours after Israel declared their statehood, they were attacked by seven Arab nations all around them.

[17:29] There is going to be a similar attack in Ezekiel 37 and 38. And the bottom line is, God says, I am going to use my people, and they are going to absolutely devastate the whole of the Arab population.

[17:51] The Arab nations are very closely coming to being eliminated. And that's the design that they have for Israel.

[18:04] They want to drive Israel into the sea. So I want you to go back now to a passage that I know you're familiar with, but we really need to go there. And it's back to Genesis. Genesis chapter 12 and the origin of the covenant.

[18:18] I must say, I have studied this and I have taught this. And several years ago, we went through Genesis. Some of you weren't here then when we did, but we thought we'd never get through it.

[18:31] It took us five years. But it's got 50 chapters and it's a big book. But we had a great time in it. And this covenant is so important.

[18:42] We tend to think that this is primarily just for Israel and a blessing just for Israel.

[18:54] But what you need to keep in mind is, while it is through the instrumentality of Israel, this thing is worldwide in scope.

[19:05] This Abrahamic covenant is going to very much impact the United States and every other nation in the world.

[19:18] The whole future of the world is riding on and is tied up in these few verses here in Genesis chapter 12.

[19:31] And let's look at them. Now the Lord said to Abram, Go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which I will show you.

[19:42] And I will make you a great nation. And I will bless you. I will make your name great. And so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you.

[19:57] And the one who curses you, I will curse. Now Israel has been blessed and cursed by numerous nations down through the ages.

[20:09] But there has never been a nation that has cursed Israel and ever got away with it. It's never happened. They've always paid and paid dearly.

[20:23] And the greatest payment is yet to come. So, as all nations who curse Israel are going to be cursed by God, those who bless Israel are going to be blessed by God.

[20:38] And I want to tell you something. I have got a new appreciation for the blessing and the favor that has been enjoyed by the United States of America since our founding.

[20:53] And I always knew that it had something to do with or was connected, at least in some loose kind of way, with the hospitality that we have extended to the Jew.

[21:12] Granted, there have been pockets of persecution regarding the Jew, even here in the United States. But by and large, Jewish people have enjoyed a freedom, a liberty here in the United States that many of their fellow Jews have been denied in several parts all throughout the world.

[21:39] The United States has been better for the Jew than probably any other nation in the world. And I don't think that it is simply due to Yankee ingenuity and American know-how and all the rest of it that we are so smart that we are as advanced as we are and have the standard of living that we do and enjoy the freedoms that we do.

[22:05] I don't think it is all because of just our being a superior people. We are not a superior people. We're just like everybody else.

[22:15] We are just members of the human race. And we have some things going for us in this nation that other nations don't have. And we can be truly grateful for that. But this connection with Israel, when he says, You shall be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.

[22:32] And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This is really something.

[22:45] And it is to be taken literally. Now, what is being established here is something not just for Abraham, not just for Israel. What is being put in place here is a game plan for the world.

[22:59] The whole world. And who is smack dab right in the middle of the thing? Israel as a nation. You would be surprised.

[23:11] No, you probably wouldn't be surprised. How many people don't believe that? You would be surprised how many Jews don't believe that. But it's true.

[23:25] Make no mistake about it. These people, these people, this tiny, relatively insignificant, number-wise, of people, are God's critical key to the future of this whole planet.

[23:45] They are so strategic and so involved in ways that they themselves don't even know or understand. But they'll gain an appreciation for as we go on.

[23:57] Now, I'd like to, well, let's just continue reading here. Verse 4. So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him.

[24:10] Now, Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan.

[24:30] Thus they came to the land of Canaan. Now, the land of Canaan, of course, is synonymous with what we're talking about here. This is Israel. This is the land. Anytime you read in Scripture where it talks about the land, it's always this land.

[24:47] Never any other land. It's always this land. God calls this land His land. And it's the only land in the whole world.

[24:58] While it is true, He made the heavens and the earth. He made the whole earth. And it all belongs to Him and the cattle and a thousand hills. But there is a peculiar ownership that the deity has for this land.

[25:10] And this land is His land. And He has given His land to His people and nobody else. These are Abraham's people.

[25:21] So, I've never read Genesis 12 before. And even when we did our study on it. And saw the significance, the internationality of this.

[25:37] And how this is going to really impact everything big, big time. Let's continue on with verse 6.

[25:49] And Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem to the oak of Morah. Now, the Canaanite was then in the land.

[26:00] And the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants I will give this land. So, he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.

[26:15] Now, we're going to have to skip around because some of this material is irrelevant to what we're getting at with the Olam Iba. So, I'd like you to come over to chapter 16 of Genesis.

[26:29] And we'll see the very beginning of the Olam Iba. And here it is spelled out in bold relief. Chapter 16.

[26:41] Now, Sarai, later to be named Sarah, Abram's wife, later to be named Abraham, had borne him no children.

[26:53] And she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. So, Sarai said to Abraham, Now, behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.

[27:05] Please go into my maid. Perhaps I shall obtain children through her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. We've got an enormous cultural gap that exists here.

[27:19] And I need to do some explaining so that you can understand this. This seems really bizarre to us. Especially when you consider that this was well before the time that there was such a thing as in vitro fertilization.

[27:37] The only way that a woman could be impregnated back in this day was the old-fashioned way that God designed. And while we would look upon that as unacceptable or an adulterous situation or a fornication or whatever, the code of Hammurabi, which was in existence at this time, Hammurabi was either a contemporary or a near contemporary of Abraham.

[28:05] And he had drawn up a code of laws, was very influential, and was followed by a lot of people throughout the world. And there's a possibility that Abraham was even in tune with it.

[28:17] But anyway, the law of Hammurabi said that if a man took a wife and was married to her for seven years, and she bore him no children, then it was considered perfectly acceptable to use a surrogate wife and to have children by her.

[28:36] And if you had a slave or a handmaiden, the master of the house would go into her, have relations with her, impregnate her, and the child that she would bear would become the legal child and the legal heir of the male and his legal wife.

[29:00] Consequently, the woman who was used as a baby-making machine is just out of the picture completely. That's the way the code of Hammurabi read, and that's what people in this day and age lived with.

[29:17] So there is every reason to believe that Abraham and Sarai are implementing this, and probably they knew others who may have done the same thing. So in their culture at that time, it's not that big a deal.

[29:31] It was just standard operating procedure. Although we would look upon it with disdain, they obviously did not. So, we read that after Abram had lived, verse 3, ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram's wife, Sarai, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her maid, and she was just like chattel property.

[29:59] They, as much as, owned her, and gave her to her husband, Abram, as his wife. We do not know for sure, but there is a very good possibility that her being an Egyptian, she was dark-skinned.

[30:16] She may have even been nearly African black, but she was probably darker-skinned than Abram or Sarah was, and her being an Egyptian.

[30:29] And then, the difficulty begins, and the reason the difficulty begins is because human nature is human.

[30:40] Always has been. And it is no different back now, back here, than it is now. Now, he went into Hagar, nothing personal, mind you, just strictly business, nothing personal, just strictly business, and when she saw that she had conceived, that is, Hagar, when Hagar realized that she had conceived, and she knew that probably the first month she missed her period.

[31:17] She probably knew what was going on. These people weren't stupid. They knew about the menstrual flow and all that and what was going on when you didn't have your period, and what that probably meant was some abnormality or pregnancy, because you've got to remember there are no birth control pills and nothing like that.

[31:36] So, there is every likelihood that women living back in this day were pregnant most of the time.

[31:50] How do you like that, ladies? I mean, most of the time. And a lot of them just about averaged a baby a year or a baby every 15 months. They had children, families with 10, 12, 14 children, not at all unusual.

[32:07] Not at all unusual. So, when she realized that she had conceived, she became haughty about it.

[32:19] And she despised her mistress. What that means, the word despised means she looked down on her mistress.

[32:30] But her mistress was her owner. Yes, but I'm the one who gave Abraham a baby.

[32:43] You didn't. You couldn't. I did. Abraham is beholden to me. I am the star here.

[32:54] Not you. She developed a contemptuous attitude toward her mistress. And how is that going to set with Sarai?

[33:08] Well, how would it set with any woman? Ladies, try to put yourself in that kind of a position. What would you think? Well, she's getting possessive. She's getting haughty.

[33:21] She's feeling like she is in charge now. Maybe, maybe I will end up as Mrs.

[33:32] Abraham and the original Mrs. Abraham can be set aside. So, she gets and Sarai said to Abraham, may the wrong done may be upon you.

[33:50] I gave my maid into your arms. When she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her sight. this is another way of saying, Abraham, this whole thing has backfired.

[34:05] This has not turned out like we planned at all. This has become really difficult. Have you seen the way she looks at me? Have you seen how she treats me?

[34:15] Have you noticed her attitude around me? Is there any kitchen or any house that's big enough for two women? Especially two who are competitive like this?

[34:31] May the Lord judge between you and me. But Abraham said to Sarai, now this is a typical husband attitude. Honey, you handle it.

[34:43] whatever you want to do is okay with me. I'll support you. It's your decision. She's your maid, isn't she? I mean, you know, she's not.

[34:55] So, you take care of it. And I'll be in there rooting for you. Okay? Oh, a man or a mouse. Behold, your maid is in your power.

[35:09] Do to her what is good in your sight. So, Sarai, replied in kind. Okay, she's going to be uppity and difficult and insulting to me.

[35:24] I'm going to give it right back to her. And here we've got these two jealous women toe to toe with all of this animosity living under this same roof.

[35:38] And can you imagine the atmosphere? You could cut it with a knife. the tension, the electricity in the air. You know the way human nature is.

[35:53] Anybody who gets it in for anybody can't find anything that they do right. Can't find anything good about them.

[36:05] Like George W. Bush said he thought seriously about titling his book. Instead of decision points, he thought about titling it how I managed to be president for eight years and never did one thing right.

[36:24] Well, Sarai could not do one thing right. And Hagar could not do one thing right.

[36:34] and Abraham caught right in the middle. Whose idea was this anyway? It was Sarah's idea.

[36:47] I don't know. I can't speak for him, of course, but I don't know that Abraham would have ever brought that up or wanted to do it. But, you know, if you understand, if you understand the mentality of the Eastern woman, how she regarded the closing of her womb, that was really, listen, having babies is what womanhood is all about.

[37:18] And if a woman can't have a baby, she just feels like, what's the point in living? Why go on? Now, that is not a healthy nor a biblical attitude to have.

[37:32] But that was the attitude to prevail in this day. If you had a closed womb, that meant you had offended God somehow. He's got it in for you.

[37:43] Or you would be having children. You'd be blessed with children. Remember Hannah and little Samuel? And she was married to Elkanah. And Elkanah had another wife, Peninnah.

[37:54] And Hannah go year after year after year. No children. She probably sat down and had a good cry every time her monthly cycle came around.

[38:09] And her husband, Elkanah, tried to comfort her and said, don't worry about it.

[38:20] It's okay. And she was just agonizing over it. And she went to the Lord and she said, if you give me a baby, I'll give him back to you all the days of his life. And made all these promises. And God opened her womb, gave her baby, and little Samuel was born.

[38:33] and you know the story how she turned him over to the priest, left him there in the temple. She saw him once a year, brought him a new coat each time, once a year.

[38:46] So these women regarded childlessness as a virtual curse. and she had the responsibility of providing Abram with an heir.

[39:01] And she could not bear a child. And what do you think she felt every time her monthly cycle rolled around and there's no pregnancy this time?

[39:18] And Abraham knows, when her cycle is, because he's not allowed to touch her during her menstruation. That was part of the law.

[39:30] Well, the law will be given later, but some of this even predates the Mosaic law. So he knew when she was off limits, and he knew when there might be a possibility of a pregnancy.

[39:43] And I can just see her one morning getting up, and she and Abraham are, sitting down at the table having their coffee, and Abraham looks over to her, and she goes, no, no.

[40:04] And Abraham, well, it's okay, honey, it's okay. Don't get all upset about it. Maybe next month. then she had to live with that.

[40:15] For years she lived with that. And she begins to get down on herself. Can you imagine how her self-esteem is when she consistently fails in the principal role she is supposed to perform?

[40:35] I can understand her saying, Abraham, I want you to go into Hagar. I wonder if he didn't refuse at first. Tex doesn't say that, but I can hear Abraham say, no, honey, no, no, I'm not going to do that.

[40:51] No. We'll just keep trying. Don't worry about it. And this may have gone on for a long time. And then finally, she says, you need to do this.

[41:03] You need to do this. okay. Okay. So he does. And she's pregnant. And decisional.

[41:13] Now, something very, very important needs to be pointed out here. This is not what God had in mind at all.

[41:32] So why didn't he stop him? Why didn't he, when Abraham was preparing to go into Hagar, why didn't Abraham hear that voice that he had heard before?

[41:46] Abraham, knock it off. This is not what I had in mind. Sarah will get pregnant when I want her to get pregnant.

[41:57] You just be patient and wait for me. Now, get out of her tent and get back to Sarah. But he didn't do that. And I have only one suggestion as to why he didn't.

[42:13] And that is God respected the volition that he gave to Abraham and to Sarah.

[42:24] And he is not going to intervene and prevent his people from doing something stupid. He lets them go ahead and do something stupid.

[42:37] And then there are consequences and then God is committed to working all things together for good even the stupid things we do.

[42:50] And this is one more case of the same thing. So we've got valiant men of God. We have godly men committed men who do really ungodly stupid things.

[43:05] Why didn't God prevent David from taking Bathsheba and killing Uriah the Hittite and setting him up for the same reason God does not intervene and take back the volition that he has given us.

[43:25] He doesn't override us. There have been times when I wanted him to. Have you ever said now Lord if you don't want me to do this you block the way.

[43:37] Don't do that. That is really dangerous. God may just say I'm not blocking anything. You've got a volition you want to do that you go ahead and do that.

[43:50] You know that's not my will for you but if you want to do that you go right ahead I'm not going to prevent you but there will be consequences to deal with and I am still committed to working all things together for your good and it may be very painful but it will be for your good and that's what's taking place here.

[44:14] So the angel verse six Abram said to Sarah she's in your power do to her what is good in your sight so Sarai treated her harshly and she fled from her presence I think what that means is and it may have taken some time I don't know may have taken days but my guess is Sarai was just unmerciful to her just cruel just hassled her hassled her and hassled her until finally Hagar says I'm not taking this anymore and Abram wouldn't step in and pull his wife off and she just got to the place of where she fled she said I can't take it anymore I'm not going to be here anymore and she fled from his presence and in verse 7 the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness by the spring on the way to Shur and he said Hagar Sarai's maid where have you come from where are you going and she said

[45:19] I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai and the angel of the Lord said to her return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority boy that must have been a bitter pill to swallow more over and here's what he's saying that he will do the angel of the Lord and I cannot prove it but I am satisfied in my own mind that the angel of the Lord is a Christophany this is a pre-incarnate revelation of the Christ and it will be repeated in other places throughout the Old Testament he is the angel of Jehovah I will greatly multiply your descendants Hagar's descendants Hagar is going to be the mother of the Arab world and

[46:19] Abraham will be the father fascinating to consider as much as these people seem to hate one another and by the way I omitted something that I mentioned earlier this hatred is pretty much one way the Jew does not feel toward the Arab the way the Arab feels toward the Jew I don't know if you knew that or not but that is very very true and it could even be verified if you were to take a public opinion poll in Israel and in Gaza today you would be startled at the results because the Jew does not want the Arab wiped off the face of the earth they don't but that's exactly what the Arab wants for the Jew and if you wonder why it is here's what it boils down to the

[47:27] Arab would say well maybe the Jew doesn't hate us like we hate them and there's no reason why they should because we are the ones who got the shaft not them we got the short end of this thing they got the long end they don't have any reason to hate us but we got plenty of reason to hate them and boy they do well let's continue on and see how this is going to play out I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they shall be too many to count the angel of the Lord said to her further behold you are with child this is when of course she's still pregnant and hasn't delivered Ishmael hasn't been born yet and you shall bear a son and you shall call his name Ishmael because the

[48:30] Lord has given heed to your affliction now I want you to notice the description because it couldn't be more accurate and he will be a wild donkey of a man well boy that fits the modern Arab to a T it really does it really does a wild donkey of a man some translations render it a wild ass of a man which is probably even more descriptive his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand will be against him how does that work out I'll tell you how it works out in the Arab world you've got Sunnis and Shiites two different kind of Muslims each one claiming a different kind of origin for the perpetuity the follow up of

[49:31] Muhammad when he died as to who was going to be his successor Shiites chose one group and the Sunnis chose another and they have been at war about that ever since some Arab nations almost the whole nation is Sunni or Shiite and they have bad blood between them they are constantly fighting between and you know what when these Arabs when these Muslim radical terrorists go into an area with bombs strapped on them to kill people they don't care if they kill Muslims they would prefer not to but it's no big deal if they kill Muslims in their suicide bombings and who do you think are the targets in many of the bombings in Iraq and in Afghanistan it isn't just Americans they kill their own people because they are saturated with a culture of death let me tell you something whenever

[50:34] Satan gets involved and there is absolutely no question that he is involved big time in the whole Islamic movement I mean the whole dynamic behind Islam is satanic I have no doubt about that at all and it would be very easy to verify and we will verify it as we go on the whole thing is satanic and Satan always brings one peculiar calling card with him it is death death death and it is always mingled with irrationality irrationality these people do things that are absolutely completely illogical they make no sense at all and the drivenness that is behind this is motivated by satanic influence the whole of the

[51:35] Quran and the whole nine yards of Muhammad and what they claim to be the five pillars of Islam and all of the rest of it when we dissect that you are going to see this house of cards come crumbling down and the scriptures make it very clear that the one who is behind Baal in the Old Testament the one who is behind Molech the god of the Moabites that we'll be looking at the one who is behind Dagon who is the fish god of the Philistines the one who is behind well we could go on and name a half a dozen of them but they all have one thing in common the deity that is supposed to be behind them is of course completely non-existent there is no god behind them there is only Satan behind them and the worship is inspired of demons this is what Paul was talking about when he wrote to the

[52:36] Corinthians about the demonic involvement among paganism and when he went to Mars Hill and Athens and the gods many you have a statue made to the unknown god all of that is based in paganism and Satan is behind all of it and he is behind this too then she called the name and he says his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand will be against him and he will live to the east of all his brothers and of course that's where they are today and then she called the name of the lord who spoke to her thou art a god who sees for she said have I even remained alive here after seeing him therefore the well was called be lehiroi behold it is between Kaddish and Berib so Hagar bore Abram a son and Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael and Abram was 86 years old when

[53:37] Hagar bore Ishmael to him now while we're in the neighborhood I want to read these next few verses and then well no I can't do that we don't have hardly any time at all for Q&A and I want to allow some time so we'll pick up here where we left off for next week and got some really heavy stuff coming questions or comments Mike could the curse that was pronounced on Hagar's to be born son be considered a consequence of the liaison between Abram and Hagar that's entirely possible I'm not sure that I would consider that call that a curse you may be right though

[54:43] I don't know that I would call it a curse but I just want to throw this out to you and it's pure conjecture there may not be anything to it at all but in a study that we conducted here a year ago we talked about the origin of the human spirit and we discussed the origin of the spirit might be that which is given directly by God individually with each person that's born or the origin of the human spirit may be transmitted from mother and father in the same way that the physical components are genetically so we have hair color eye color skin build and all of this transferred from mother and father to the child is there a possibility that spirit components of the mother and the father which are intangible non-material like genes and chromosomes that there is somehow a transmission of that from parent to child because if there is that could explain the inculcation of certain attitudes and mental habits and attributes and likes and dislikes etc because this is all part and parcel of the human spirit

[56:13] I don't know if that has any validity or not but there is some way that these things get from parent to child and it isn't just physical so is it possible that this kind of hatred and this hatred that the Jew has this hatred that the Jew has for the Arab is an utterly irrational hatred what did I say okay well I stand corrected I just misspoke you know what I'm talking about because you've been here all evening I hope you do but it is an irrational thing and it is not shared the other way either so it is amazing in fact you have to understand something about Israel it is completely unlike any place in the whole world do you realize that there are Arabs Muslim Arabs living in Israel and they are citizens of Israel did you know that there are

[57:20] Muslim Arabs sitting in the Knesset which is the Jewish equivalent of our Congress the Knesset is their Congress there are Arabs holding office in the Jewish Knesset a Jewish mother was talking to a Palestinian mother and she said we can forgive you for killing our sons but we will not forgive you for making us kill your sons now that's a typical attitude of the Jew to the Arab but it is not shared by the Arab it is an irrational satanic motivated kind of hatred and it stems back to this and we're going to see how it is intensified with Jacob and Esau

[58:27] I have seen the blessing that was stolen remember Rebecca and Jacob how they connived to steal the blessing I see that in an entirely different light now than I did before and it is simply brought out in this book it shed new light and when I read that I thought aha yeah that makes a lot of sense and it does that blessing was not stolen it belonged to Jacob God had already given it to Jacob and stupid Isaac was going to give it to Esau how do we know that well the text makes it very clear I don't know if it's because Isaac was old blind feeble tottering maybe he had onset

[59:30] Alzheimer's I don't know but he was going to bless the wrong boy you know why because Esau was his favorite well Jacob was Rebecca's favorite and neither of them had any business choosing a favorite but they did so we'll see how that plays out and it is fascinating all of this is going to come right down to fueling this olam eba that is such dynamite material and it is going to come to a head in the Ezekiel passage yeah Mike I wonder if Israeli forces political forces are aware that this war is coming and are they preparing for it you better believe it I don't know if they I don't know if they know the war is coming in connection with the Ezekiel passage there are probably more Christians who put a lot more credence in the Ezekiel passage than what there are Jews who do and it's a really sad thing but the

[60:32] Jewish nation spiritually speaking now is in such apostasy it's just terrible it's just terrible I mean to their own scriptures and to their own God they are in a bad bad way a lot of people think that Israel is a spiritual nation and a religious nation and religious people and the religion is Judaism don't you believe that there's not a bit of truth in that not a bit of truth in Israel Israel Israel as a nation is one of the most secular states 10% of their population is practicing Judaism and there's a huge number of Jews living in Israel that are atheists a huge number of them that have no regard at all for the Old Testament never read it don't know a thing about it and I'm not talking about the New Testament I'm talking about the Old Testament so Israel still God's chosen people still the people of the covenant but they are spiritually speaking they are so far out of it that you can't imagine but the time is coming when they're going to come back big time and it's going to be really something

[61:40] Marvis when you say 10% are practicing Judaism do you mean the Hasidic Jews or is there in Israel is there more of a reform well not only in Israel but throughout the world the greater percentage of Jews wherever they're living are what's referred to as reformed but there's nothing reformed about them they're the most liberal of all the Jews and then the orthodox are the are those who at least take Judaism seriously they are the orthodox and there's probably about 10% of them and you know it's really funny I just get such a kick out of this because every time Israel tries to form a new government they have to get a coalition together and have a majority or they can't form a new government and it never fails they always need that ragtag 10% of the orthodox who are in the

[62:43] Knesset they have to gain their cooperation or they're not able to form a government and this little 10% wields such tremendous power they've got the whole state of Israel mad at them because they won't let them do a lot of things for instance they won't let them do business on the Sabbath they have ways of controlling that and the Jew who is a secular Jew yeah baby bring it on I want to do business on the Sabbath I want to do business seven days a week there's money to be made and here are these stubborn Jews over there and they won't let them do it they have ways of shutting them down and it just irritates them to no end these are the people that chase cheeseburgers out of McDonald's McDonald's restaurants in Israel is the only place in the whole world where McDonald's can't serve cheeseburgers because of this ten percent and the Old Testament law says you shall not see the kid in his mother's milk and as a Jew keeping kosher you cannot serve meat and dairy at the same time and in the same meal that is verboten so they it's really funny

[63:57] I've got some other stories that I could tell you that are just amazing I'll close with this one we were in Israel it was a Sabbath which of course is in sundown Saturday and the gals wanted to do some shopping you know they always wanted to do some shopping so we went to the we were in the Jewish quarter and there was a Jewish quarter a Muslim quarter and our mening quarter in old Jerusalem and it was about five minutes until sundown and all these Jews Jewish businessmen owners of these they call them socks we call them markets they're all standing out in front of their place ready to open it up and are just waiting for the buzzer or whatever is going to go off to signify the end of the Sabbath and this one guy goes over here and he he opens up his shop and he starts setting stuff out and he turns the lights on and there's a guy across the street a competitor of his and he starts yelling at him just yelling at the top of his own and just carrying on you know and this guy who's opening up his shop and this guy keeps yelling and shaking his fist guy and

[65:21] I said what's he saying he keeps saying this one word in Hebrew over and over again he kept yelling it at him I said what's he saying he's saying transgressor transgressor transgressor because he was opening a shop before the Sabbath ended you know he wanted to get a jump on the sails it's an incredible place I tell you well we've just scratched the surface in this study going to thicken I can assure you and I want you to stay with me on this because we're going to go all the way up to where we are now with the terrorist problem and Islam and the whole nine yards and how this is all going to play out so we've got some fascinating stuff ahead of us let's close with prayer father we're grateful for the record that you've been pleased to give and we pray for a better understanding of it we ask that as we engage this most important subject that you've set in play that we will be able to grasp the significance and have a true appreciation for you and for what you have begun through your covenant people we pray in

[66:34]  Christ's name Amen